Greatest Utensil Ever, Free On Aegean Airlines

Behold!!! The greatest use of plastic ever on this planet.  Be prepared to eat chunky soups without having to use more than one utensil.  But wait, not only is it useful, it's portable too.  I think great men will tremble at the sight of this invention, and people around the world will sing its praises.

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Old T-Shirts Part 1 - The Green Striped Gap Shirt

Over the next little while I'm going to be throwing out some old shirts that are worn out.  I hate getting rid of old shirts because they hold so many great memories for me.  I've decided, for the next little while, to post short stories about each shirt so they can be remembered forever... or at least until the internet is obsolete.

This shirt is pretty simple, it has no particular defining characteristics, and is actually a pretty common design.  It's so common that one day I went into work, only to find that someone else was wearing the same shirt.  Actually the shirt was almost the same, the other shirt was red with green and white stripes.  Either way, me and the other person knew we'd be in for a whole day of ripping from our co-workers.  This particular work place environment was well known for being harsh when it came to making fun of others.  It was friendly yet relentless.  However a spontaneous moment saved our day.  As we walked up to each other, rather than try and avoid the situation, we locked arms and started to do a Russian/Greek style silly dance.  We basically pretended to be silly dancing elves, it got great laughs and not another word was said about the shirt incident for the rest of the day.  On another note, at one point in my life, this was the fancy shirt I owned.

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Creepiest Store Front Ever...

And women wonder why men don't like shopping at their stores.

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Let There Be Hair

 While in Lithuania, Allison and I decided to visit a church that contained a rather strange item.

The item pictured above (sorry it's a little blurry) is a figure of Jesus.  Nothing strange about that in a church, however this figure of Jesus happens to have real human hair.  200 year old human hair to be exact, from a priest or cardinal or something.  The strangest thing of all is after walking into the church I quickly realized that this human hair Jesus was not in fact the strangest thing on display.

The church was totally filled with strange sculptures all over the walls.  Some where kind of normal, saints and religious figures, but some I just can't explain.

Take for example this baby holding a sword at the door, now that can't be safe.

Or this cherub that appears to be forcefully kissing another cherub.

My favorite was this lady holding a pair of pliers.  I assume she's the patron saint of tooth removal.

Strangest of all was this machine.  For 5 Litas (about 2.5 dollars) you can light up the church so you can take better photographs.  I assume it's all automated, but I didn't try it out, I felt dirty paying for "enlightenment" in a religious place.

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Hoop Dreams

In Vilnius Lithuania they've put up a bunch of fun little free throw lines near garbage cans to encourage people to throw things in the proper receptacles.  It took me 20 minutes to throw away a candy bar wrapper.  My basketball skills are not paying any kind of bills.

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Photo Update

 Just finished a few new pieces for the Senses fine art gallery.

You can check out the whole gallery here.

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Signs I Like

Don't you think this sign is kind of stating the obvious?  Sure you could argue that it's there to tell you that there should be a life saving rind there, but if it wasn't there and you needed it, the sign wouldn't really help much.

Name's not "Mike" go somewhere else.

I can't possibly say enough about this sign that would do it justice.

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I Love This Music Video

I've grown to like covers as of late.  This cover is also particularly great.

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Travel Tips

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
Think I might start posting some travel tips now and then on this site. I think I travel a fair bit so maybe sharing a bit of my own wisdom might help you enjoy your traveling.  The first one I would say is always have some kind of crazy project that you can tie into your trip.  The guys that made this movie had one, I take pictures of bathrooms.  It really gives travel destinations a real twist.

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Art I Can Appreciate

I'd love to have a set up like this running through my whole house.

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Scary Black Bug... A Poem

What do you do when you see such a bug?
Do you run away, or give him a hug?
Do you inspect him, to find out his kin?
Or do you step over and try to squash him?
Do you try, to be a bug friend?
Or do you try to bring him his end?
Little bug friend, maybe your a nice guy.
The little bastard stung me... die... die... die!

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My Buddy Mike B's New Track

He's a great painter, a funny guy, and reminds me a lot of Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street.  Check out his latest track here, and pick up the album if you like it.

Click here to check out his tune.

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Bathrooms From Paros

Nothing says summer fun better than a trip to an island for some fun in the sun. And with every trip comes the occasional pit stop.

Including this one with a great view of some old Greek ruins.

Click here to check out some new bathrooms from the island of Paros.

CC

Signs I Like

Seems like a bad idea trusting your laundry to a fishing boat.

Please state the obvious.... Thank you.

Because no one likes an angry green cow.

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Fat Lady Find

At the archaeological museum on the island of Paros they have a most interesting find.  It's a small statue of a woman.  More importantly (at least according to the name of the piece) it's a small statue of a "fat" woman.  Here name is the "The Fat Lady of Saliagos".  Just to make sure you know she's fat everywhere, they've placed a mirror in the display to point out her fat ass as well.

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Shhhhhhhhhhhh...

Kitty is sleeping.

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New Bathrooms In Athens

Just added these two bathrooms to the map.

One from a museum, and one from a taverna.

Click here to check out these new entries.

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A Day At The Archaeological Museum

Most people might post a blog full of important, and beautiful, treasures they'd seen when visit they've visited an archaeological museum.  Me, I'm just going to post a series of photos of things that creeped me out.  The first thing I discovered was that whenever a piece had been taken away they left a little note.  These notes also included a little photograph of the piece.  I figure these where there to make sure you knew what you missed.

I also discovered that old metal (maybe bronze, I never read the little cards) have the craziest stares.

This one will haunt my dreams for decades.

Sometimes it makes me sad to see damaged art, sometimes it give me nightmares.

This statue can easily be the strangest situation I've ever seen depicted in marble.  Apparently it's Aphrodite, and a Cherub (I can't remember it's name) fighting off Pan's (sexual?) advances.  Best of all Aphrodite's weapon of choice... Her shoe.

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Signs I Like

Define "Stuff".

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Pigeon Prices

This pigeon is really free in two ways.

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Another Colour Sketch, Another...

It would be nice if each colour sketch I made equaled a dollar, or maybe even a few dollars.  For now they'll cover up scuff marks on some of my walls.

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I Don't Even Know Where To Start...

This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen come out of Asia... and that's saying a lot.

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Photography and Rube Goldberg... A Winning Combination.

These are two of my favorite things... together... at last.

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Signs I Like

This is actually from a campaign that a Greek electronics store is going with this summer.  I'm thinking that if Mr. Chuck Norris was to visit Greece for the summer, there might be a lawsuit in the works.

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Endangered Squared

So I walked by this store the other night and I came across these atrocities.  They're crocodiles carved out of elephant tusks.  So basically it's a representation of an endangered animal, made from another endangered animal.  Classy.

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Bin Full Of Torsos

I tried to think of something clever to write about this huge bin of random torsos that I came across the other day.

Frankly photos of a bin full of torsos speaks for itself.

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I Can't, I Won't, and I Don't Stop

Sesame Street breaks it down from Wonderful Creative on Vimeo.
I love this mash-up.

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Sleeping Dogs Lie

Today I went on the subway here in Athens, and at the bottom of the escalator at the entrance there where a bunch of dogs.  At first I thought it was some kind of new security measure, but then I realized that they where pretty much all sleeping.

I then figured out why they where there, for the sake of a cliche.  People can walk down to the subway, see where "sleeping dogs lie" and then giggle to themselves about using the cliche at an opportune moment.  It's a very commendable service that these dogs provide.

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